Mass surveillance: Amnesty International calls on NYC to ban use of facial recognition technology

Human rights organisation Amnesty International (AI) weighs in with research on how facial recognition technology is being used for surveillanace purposes in New York City, and calls on the city to ban use of such technology. "Facial recognition software identifies individuals by their face, among millions of images in a database," says the movement, which is headquartered in the United Kingdom. "It has been used 22,000 times in New York City, since 2017. The technology is developed through scraping millions of images from social media profiles without permission." Pointing out that surveillance use of the technology threatens the right to protest - currently playing out in various global scenarios as a result of government attempts to introduce Covid-related 'vaccine mandates' - AI also highlights the risk of amplified racially discriminatory policing. "Black and minority communities are at risk of being misidentified and falsely arrested – in some instances, facial recognition has been 95% inaccurate. Even when it 'works', it can exacerbate discriminatory policing and prevent the free and safe exercise of peaceful assembly, by acting as a tool of mass surveillance," says AI. What do you think of this 2'30" campaign? Does it do a good job of bringing an under-discussed issue into an easily understood focus for those of us who might not be aware? Too little too late, the mass surveillance train has already left the station?

Keywords: Amnesty International Ban the Scan, Amnesty International mass surveillance, facial recognition technology NYC, right to protest, right to peaceful assembly